Words that inspired a generation

There was one brief shining moment some 40 years ago when the word and the image were in fine balance in the world of politics. Into that time came John F. Kennedy. A handsome man, Kennedy cared very much how he looked, almost to the point of excessive vanity. But he also cared deeply about what he said and how he said it. His rhetorical hero was Winston Churchill, whose bold speeches had...

No man is an island, goes the prose; but with this charming, subtly premonitory and often disarming book, we are un-Donne. According to Thurston Clarke, author of Searching for Crusoe: A Journey Among the Last Real Islands, there are those among us who have an innate affinity for islands as refuges from personal or material intrusions, as Gaugin-like paradises of sex and simplicity, or as...